Whistling, Number One Survival Skill for Old Age

It’s Monday. Does everyone remember what Monday is? Monday is the day the Lord hath made for whining. Sooooooooooooooo, here I am using my Monday whining card.
There’s whistling in the dark, whistling while you work, and whistling in old age. Ladies, you can’t imagine how much you may need this skill.
I am not very flexible or graceful at getting up from a sitting or prone position anymore. So, I have a handicap safety bar to pull up with on the side of my bathtub. Today, I decided my knee was finally healed enough from surgery for the luxury of a sit down bath. It was lovely! Until I tried to get up and out of the tub. Realized then that even with the handicap bar, I get up on my right knee first to get leverage. My right knee incisions are safely closed, but the knee itself is still very tender. Made several attempts with different approaches, but all were pretty ineffective and scary. I finally decided I needed help. I knew my husband was in his home office, but I had the exhaust fan running in the bathroom and he is pretty hard of hearing. From past experience I know that if someone in one of these apartment groups pounds on a wall or yells,”HELP!” loudly, someone from another apartment will call 911. Normally this is reassuring, but not a comforting scenario in this situation. I would have just stayed in a hot soaky bath until Julian missed me, but I had only a short time to get dressed for an appointment.
So finally, I tried whistling. I was almost blue in the face by the time I heard Julian calling, “Is that you?”
Saved by whistling! Who could have imagined a childhood achievement would save the day at seventy-nine!
Another experience along the same lines last week has me puzzling for a solution. For some inexplicable reason many restaurants are putting one tall handicap toilet and all others are obviously for “little people” or children. At my age, sometimes when the handicap stall is in use, you can’t wait to be picky. You just have to take the first available. Unfortunately, these low to the ground toilets do not have any kind of grab bar or help button. Last week in the “Ladies Room” of an elegant restaurant, I contemplated whether to yell for help or to just stay there until the cleaning crew came that night. Somehow, after much struggling, I eventually managed to get to my feet and hang onto the sides, so that I didn’t end up in the toilet. Perhaps wearing some sort of piercing emergency whistle at all times is the way to go for little old ladies. I’m just not comfortable with a with a call in necklace that shouts, “I’m on the toilet and I can’t get up.”